The vxdiskadm script is interactive and prompts you
for responses, supplying defaults where appropriate.
Help is available at every prompt by entering
a question mark (?) to display a
context-sensitive help message.

To add
disks,
specify one or more disks with a disk-address-pattern-list.

The basic format for disk addresses is sdX or hdX,
or enclosure-based names such as enc1_0,
but other formats may be supported.
Disk address names relate directly to device node names.

You can use the files
/etc/vx/disks.exclude, /etc/vx/cntrls.exclude and
/etc/vx/enclr.exclude to
to automatically exclude disks and enclosures
from Veritas Volume Manager control.
Each line of /etc/vx/disks.exclude
specifies the address of a disk to exclude, for example, sdc.
Each line of cntrls.exclude
specifies a controller to be excluded, for example, c1.
Each line of enclr.exclude
specifies an enclosure to be excluded, for example, enc1.

Prompts for one or more disk device addresses, and a disk group
to which these are to be added.

When initializing disks into a new disk group, you are prompted to choose
whether this disk group should be compatible with the
Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature.

You are also given the alternative of
initializing the disk but leaving it unallocated to a disk group.
A default disk name is assigned with the format,
diskgroup##, such that
the names are unique within all imported disk groups.
You are prompted to specify whether to designate the disks as spares
for the disk group.
The disks are then checked to ensure that
there is no information already
on them.
If there is,
you are given the option of encapsulating them.

Encapsulate one or more disks

Prompts for one or more disk addresses, and a target disk group for the disks.
The vxencap utility is used to encapsulate partitions on the named disks.

If the specified disk group is not compatible
with the Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature,
you are prompted to choose
whether to continue or abandon the operation,
or to select a different disk group.

Remove a disk

Prompts for a disk, by disk media name.
The disk is checked
to ensure that no subdisks reside on the disk.
If the disk is in use,
the operation fails with a recommendation to first move all
volumes off the disk.
If this disk is the last disk in a group,
you are also prompted whether to remove the disk group
from the system.

The operation then calls vxdg rmdisk to remove the
disk from its disk group.
If this is the last disk in its disk group,
vxdg deport is used instead.

Remove a disk for replacement

Prompts for a disk by disk media name.
The disk is checked
for volumes that would lose all mirrors as a result of the operation.
If such volumes exist, those volumes are listed and
you are prompted whether to continue the operation.

The operation calls vxdg -k rmdisk to dissociate
the media record from the physical disk.
If there are formatted disks available that have
disk headers but no disk group,
you are prompted whether to use one of these disks as a
replacement.

Replace a failed or removed disk

Prompts for a disk media name.
The named media record must be dissociated from a disk.
If the media record is not in the
removed state,
unused disks are scanned for matching disk IDs.
If a disk with a matching disk ID is found,
you are prompted whether to reattach that disk.

If a matching disk is not used,
you are prompted for a new disk,
by device address.
If the named replacement disk has a valid disk header,
but is not allocated to a disk group,
you are prompted
whether to reinitialize the disk.
If the named replacement
disk is listed as allocated to a disk group or to another host,
you are prompted whether to continue the operation.

If the device is initialized, vxdisksetup is called to
set up public and private regions
and to create the disk header.

Given an initialized disk,
the operation replaces the
disk in a disk group with vxdg -k adddisk.

Mirror volumes on a disk

Prompts for a disk, by media name.
It then prompts
for a destination disk within the same disk group, also by media
name.
Specifying no destination disks indicates that any disk can be
the destination.
The operation calls vxmirror to mirror the volumes.

Move volumes from a disk

Prompts for a disk, by media name.
It then prompts
for a possible list of destination disks, also by disk media name.
Specifying no destination disks indicates that any disk is suitable.
The operation calls vxevac to move subdisks
off the disk.

Enable access to (import) a disk group

Prompts for a disk group name.
The operation calls vxdg import to import the disk group stored
on that disk.

Remove access to (deport) a disk group

Prompts for a disk group name.
The prompt
lists alternate disk groups and the disks
(media name and access name)
that they contain.
The operation calls vxdg
deport.

Enable (online) a disk device

Prompts for a disk device.
The prompt
lets you display the disks on the system.
The operation
functions only for disks currently offline.
It then makes the disk accessible.

Disable (offline) a disk device

Prompts for a disk device.
The prompt
lets you display the disks on the system.
The operation
functions only for disks currently online, but not part of
any disk group.
It then marks the disk as offline such that VxVM no
longer tries to access the disk.

Mark a disk as a spare for a disk group

Sets up a disk as a spare device for its disk group.
A spare disk can be used to automatically replace a
disk that has failed.
No space can be used on a disk that is marked as a spare.

Turn off the spare flag for a disk

Removes a disk from the list of spare disks,
and returns its space to the general pool of available space.

Unrelocate subdisks back to a disk

Moves subdisks which were hot-relocated following a disk failure
back to the original disk, or to a disk with a different name,
possibly with a different offset.

Exclude a disk from hot-relocation use

Sets up a disk to be excluded from use by hot-relocation.
The disk is marked as nohotuse and it cannot be used by
hot-relocation to replace a disk that has failed.
However, it remains available to be used as free space
for its disk group.

Make a disk available for hot-relocation use

Turns off the nohotuse flag on a disk.
Use this option to make a disk available
for hot-relocation use. This only applies to disks that were
previously excluded from hot-relocation use.

Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVMs view

Excludes devices from VxVMs view.
The option to prevent paths from being multi-pathed
by the dynamic multi-pathing (DMP) driver, vxdmp, is deprecated.

There are three ways of specifying the devices on which these operations
are to be performed:

o

As a controller for all devices connected through the controller.

o

As a physical pathname for all devices under that path.

o

As a combination of the Vendor ID and Product ID (VID:PID)
for all devices of that type.

The option to define pathgroups and suppress all but
one path in the pathgroup is deprecated.

Allow multipathing/Unsuppress devices from VxVMs view

Makes devices visible to VxVM again. This operation can be performed
only on devices that were previously specified using
the "Prevent multipathing/Suppress devices from VxVMs view" option.
The option to allow paths to be multi-pathed
by the dynamic multi-pathing (DMP) driver, vxdmp,
is deprecated.

List currently suppressed/non-multipathed devices

Lists all devices suppressed from VxVMs view.

Change the disk naming scheme

Changes the disk naming scheme from the
sdx format to enclosure-based.
Alternatively, if the existing naming scheme is enclosure-based,
it is changed to sdx format.

This option is equivalent to using the
vxddladm set namingscheme={ebn|osn} command.

Note: Devices with very long device names (for example, Fibre Channel
devices that include worldwide name (WWN) identifiers) are always
represented by enclosure-based names.
This operation has no effect on such devices.

Change/Display the default disk layouts

Allows you to change or display the default disk format
and private region length that are used when initializing
or encapsulating
disks.

List disk information

Displays a list of disks. You can also
choose to list detailed information about the disk at a specific
disk device address.

Dynamic reconfiguration operations

Enables you to change the LUN configuration dynamically,
without performing a reconfiguration reboot on the host.
Dynamic reconfiguration operations include
adding, removing or replacing LUNs, and replacing host bus adapters (HBAs).
See the Storage Foundation Administrator's Guide for more information.

Some environments provide guidelines to optimize VxVMs interaction
with intelligent storage systems. If these guidelines are present, VxVM
follows the guidelines when adding disks to disk groups and when
mirroring the volumes on a disk. If the operation fails due to these
guideline(s), you are prompted to use the force option. The force
option ignores any such storage-specific guidelines.